Is this an IE bug or a hijack bug?

I've got an interesting bug that happens when I use the Hijack FTP features with Internet Explorer.

Note: I have installed the Internet Explorer "browser enhancements" that let it function as a full-featured bidirectional FTP client. I am able to send and receive files to the player through hijack, and because of the HTTP interface, I can also easily make bookmarks to set the player RW and RO. So although everyone's first statement to me will be "use a real FTP client", I just want to say that it's convenient for me to be able to use IE and I would like to continue to do so.

Here is the bug:



The item with the strange name (indicated by the arrow) appears in most (all?) of the folders I browse to. Its name is random, and the randomness seems to come from random snippets of memory or cache from the browser. For instance, I once saw the name contain a large chunk of HTML code from the previously-displayed HTML page.

Where does this garbage item come from, and why does it appear only when I connect to the Hijack FTP server? It does not appear when I connect to other FTP servers.

I tried it and the characters are diifferent for me but take a look at the filesize

Tony,

I've seen this too. If you hit refresh, the item with the garbage name should turn into the folder link to "..". At least that's what it does for me.

This still doesn't explain why on the first access, the ".." directory has a garbage name, though.

-Aaron

Right. As I said, the filename is random data from (what I think is) your browser cache. I think the file size is also random data.

If you hit refresh, the item with the garbage name should turn into the folder link to "..". At least that's what it does for me.

This does not happen for me. The file name and icon continues to be random garbage.

Also, in my example screen shot, I was in the root and there should not have been a link to ".."

It should be pretty easy to tell whether or not it's a kftpd bug by sniffing the FTP connection to see how the directory list comes down the wire. If that directory is sent as "..", but IE displays it as "Throatwarbler Mangrove", then it doesn't seem like it could be a bug in kftpd. If I was near my Windows machine right now, I'd do it myself.

Of course it is possible that Hijack is doing something slightly out of spec with the FTP session. However, that's no excuse for IE's behavior.


-Aaron

I was in the root and there should not have been a link to ".."

ls -a /

Peter

Oh, yeah. Does it exhibit the same behavior elsewhere (not in /)?

-Aaron

Oh, yeah. Does it exhibit the same behavior elsewhere (not in /)?

Yes. One garbage file seems to appear in each folder, including /.

ls -a /

Error opening local file /.
> /:Permission denied

Do you ever get the ".." directory when you're in the non-root directories? Or, do you just get the garbage folder?


-Aaron

While I do not normally help with IE bugs, try this:

[hijack]

kftpd_show_dotdir=1

??

Do you ever get the ".." directory when you're in the non-root directories? Or, do you just get the garbage folder?

I never get the dotdir. Only the garbage icon.

[hijack]
kftpd_show_dotdir=1

I tried this, and it did not change the behavior.

I was running hijack 179, I will try upgrading to the latest one and see if that helps...

I'll change v184 of Hijack to conform more to how other FTP servers operate. The "show_dotdirs" option will also disappear at that time, replaced by "rootdir_dotdot=1" for 100% conformity.

Cheers

I'll change v184 of Hijack to conform more to how other FTP servers operate.

Cool, I'll just sit and hit refresh on the download page for the next few minutes, then.

It's there now.. (you could use the "AutoHijack" notification system..)

Hmm. With 184, the garbage directory now seems to show up as a single dot. This allows me to keep clicking to get a URL of:

http://empeg/./././././

I still don't get a double dot in the "icons" view. Here is an example...



Any ideas?

Well, '.' means "current directory", so if you click on it, that's perfectly valid behaviour (what you reported).

The '..' is probably being hidden by MSIE, since it has the UP-ARROW button above to do the same function.

Cheers

-ml

I'll update the next version of kftpd to strip redundant "./" sub-elements from the path.

Cheers

Okay, makes sense.

Oddly, though, I'm still getting garbage icons. Sometimes it's the one-dot, sometimes it's the garbage icon. It's intermittent.

edit: and let me re-iterate that I do not get these garbage icons when I go to my FTP site at my ISP. I get the full explorer-style folder treatment but without either a single-dot nor a double-dot icon, and without the garbage icons.

Where did you find a Terabyte disk?

Four frigging minutes!!

Okay, Tony. Here's the deal:

Your windoze client is apparently dazed and baffled by the appearance of "." and ".." in the FTP directory listings. Some *nix FTP servers always provide them in the listings, and others only provide them when "ls -a" is used ("-a" == display ALL files, otherwise hide anything beginning with a dot).

Hijack currently shows ALL files by default. I will change the behaviour to hide "dot files" unless "-a" is given. That oughta keep your client software from puking all over itself.

v185, in a few minutes (gotta go make the change first).

Cheers

-ml

I'm still getting the garbage icon in 185, so at this point I have to assume it's a bug in Internet Explorer. It's probably asking for the dot directories and then not processing them properly when it comes back from your stuff.

I agree that even if your program isn't perfectly following the standards, it's inexcusable for IE to display random garbage in an icon name.

It's IE. They have about the worst FTP implementation in creation, because the RFC for FTP doesn't give them enough 'creative license' to munge the thing up, so they have to resort to just using the standard and making that work poorly.

No, I'm not bitter or anything.

heh!
According to Bill Gates, that is called "innovation"

Hey, Mark...

If our theory is correct, that IE is asking for the dotdirs but not displaying them correctly, is it possible for Hijack to have an option that deliberately suppresses the dotdirs, even if the client asks for them?

For example, maybe:

[hijack]
kftpd_show_dotdir=0

Wonder if that would fix it?

No, if the client asks for dotdirs, then Hijack has to pass them on. Otherwise some fool will set the option and then drive me nutty trying to debug his backup/restore problems later on..

-ml